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Thursday, October 31, 2013

My fellow authors and I were having an email conversation
and I discovered we share a common issue when writing. Knowing when the story
is done.

In my own opinion I compare it to baking custard.

Now that may seem an odd analogy, but hey you’ve all been
reading me for a while so you should be used to that by now.

You see I’ve been making baked custard since I was about
twelve years old. Why? Well I love custard, so did my Mom and Dad, but my
siblings…not so much. What do they know? However, being from a good sized
family my Mom told me that she couldn’t take the time to make something that
just a few people liked.

So if I wanted it, I would have to learn to make it myself.

So I did and I you know what? It’s not hard to bake custard.

With custard you have four ingredients. Milk, eggs, sugar
and salt. You combine them and cook them in a water bath until done. That’s all
there is to it.

Except, figuring out when it’s done.

Because making custard isn’t hard. What’s hard is getting it
right.

You see with custard you have a very narrow window between
underdone, overdone and just right. Seems to be no in between with the stuff. It
all starts when you combine those four ingredients. You have to scald the milk
(complicated cooking term), and since the milk is hot and eggs are cold you to
temper the eggs (another complicated cooking term) with the hot milk or you
have sweet scrambled eggs. There’s also the water bath thing, but you’ve got to
do it that way or the custard won’t get done all the way, which is bad. Also so
many factors can play into how the texture turns out. The temperature of your
water path, or not getting the milk the right temperature at the beginning can
all mess you up. I’ve had custard be silky smooth one time and more like
tapioca the next. Fortunately both ways work,
as long as it’s cooked all the way I’m good with it.

Now I’ve been doing custard long enough to where I know what
the milk needs to look like before adding it to the eggs, and I can pretty much
look at it and know when it’s ready. It’s the way it wiggles. Don’t ask it’s
just something you just know when you’ve done it long enough.

Writing a story is the same way. Don’t do enough and your
story isn’t satisfying to the reader, do too much and you can lose the reader.
You’ve got to find that point of knowing when to stop and it’s different for
each writer.

So how do I know when I’m done? It’s the way it wiggles.

Mystery writer C.L. Ragsdale is the author of The Reboot
Files a Christian Cozy Mystery Series, and a superhero story called Chasing
Lady Midnight. A California native, she loves to "surf" the web toresearch plot details for her fun, quirky stories. She has a degree in Theatre Arts which greatly influenced her writing
style. Working in various fields as a secretary has allowed her to both
master her writing skills and acquire valuable technical knowledge which she
uses liberally in her plots. Although that is where she got her idea for The
Secretary, she is not an evil mastermind. Although some of her former employers
might disagree. These days she contents herself with knitting while
contemplating her next diabolical plot. Story plot that is.

Current E-Books

THE REBOOT FILES: The Mystery of Hurtleberry House, The Island of Living
Trees, The Harbinger of Retribution, and The Wrong Ghost.

Mitzy crossed the living room in
five steps, again. “This house is really small.”

“Umm hmm.” Alonzo sat in his
leather recliner, watching football on his twenty-year-old projection TV. The
cords from his high-def conversion box, VCR, Internet streaming box, Blu-ray,
and equally ancient surround sound hung down the sides of the giant box like a
bad wig.

“No, like really small. My
sectional didn’t even fit.” She stood in front of the picture window and
stretched her arms out. “I can almost reach from one wall to the other.”

“That’s because you are an Amazon.”
He turned the volume up.

Mitzy crossed the room, this time
with long, exaggerated steps.

“Now it’s only four steps.”

“Did you think it would grow?”

Mitzy flipped the light switch a
couple of times. The TV shut off. “We don’t have enough outlets in here.”

“Hey now.” Alonzo grabbed up the
remote and clicked the TV on. It warmed back up slowly.

“You should add at least three more
for the entertainment center.”

“Touchdown!” Alonzo leapt to his
feet. “I think we’re going to win this one.” He sat down on the edge of his
seat and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

Mitzy flipped the switch again.

“Knock it off! We’re in overtime!”
Alonzo hit the power button on the remote again. He scowled at the television
as it flickered back into life.

“We can’t turn the light off
without turning the TV off. Isn’t that a problem for you?”

“Ooh,” Alonzo groaned and leaned
back in his chair. “They lost possession.”

“And there’s overhead lighting in
the living room. I just… I don’t know. It’s just wrong. Can’t you fix that?”

“It’s all over now. They don’t
stand a chance to win.” Alonzo stood up and turned off the TV. “I can’t believe
we lost that. No Superbowl for the Hawks this year.”

“Who are the Hawks?”

“Seahawks. Our team.”

“Aren’t they Seattle’s team?”

Mitzy stood in front of the picture
window again and stretched her arms out. “I can touch both edges of the window.”

Outside, a slushy rain fell, like
blobby white snowflakes that made cold puddles on the sidewalk.

Alonzo meandered into the kitchen.
He opened the fridge and scrounged around. “Where’s the lasagna?”

“I took it to work for lunch.”

“Humph.” Alonzo took out last
night’s roast. He put the whole thing in the microwave to reheat.

“We’re having dinner in, like, an
hour. Are you really having that now?”

“Don’t you have a house to sell?”
Alonzo watched the timer on the microwave.

“I took the day off. Let’s go out
to dinner.” Going out had been Mitzy’s plan all along, and his picking out the
leftovers were a direct offensive move against that plan. The likely result of
her accidentally shutting off his game.

The microwave beeped.

“That can’t be warm yet.” Mitzy
checked the big hunk of beef for any sign of steaminess.

Alonzo set the plate down and
leaned over it, guarding it with his arms. He ate a forkful of the lukewarm
meat without a comment.

Mitzy poured herself a cup of
coffee and sat down at the table with Alonzo.

Alonzo swallowed. “Okay. We can eat
out tonight, but, babe, don’t do that during a game again, okay?”

Mitzy nodded and took a drink of
her coffee. She looked out the window at their back yard. The backyard neighbor
still hadn’t put siding up. For as long as Mitzy had been with Alonzo, that
house had needed siding. Now, the pink vapor barrier that was supposed to be
underneath the nonexistent siding was ratty and faded with long fibrous strands
blowing in the wind.

“We could do some renovations,”
Alonzo said.

Mitzy turned back to Alonzo. He
smiled at her, his face creasing into crow’s feet and dimples.

“We could renovate.” Mitzy
turned her eyes back to the window.

“But?”

“But we’d still be in Felony
Flats.”

Alonzo shrugged.

“You don’t want your kids to go to
school here, do you?” Mitzy asked.

“You can live anywhere and go to
Central Catholic.”

“Let’s not start that.”

“Hey, Mom offered. We’re not
turning down free school just because it is Catholic, are we?”

“We don’t even have kids yet. We’ve
not even been married a year.”

“You brought up kids.” Alonzo
prodded the meat on his plate. “I think you don’t want to renovate this house
because you got something else in mind.”

Mitzy attempted to suppress a
smile, but it quirked at the side of her mouth.

“It’s not for sale.” Alonzo took
another bite of his pre-dinner pot roast.

“Yet.”

“When it is for sale,” he said
around a mouthful of food, “we can’t afford it.”

“Of course we can. Didn’t you marry
the only successful Realtor left in town?” Mitzy took her now-empty coffee cup
to the sink and rinsed it out. “And who says we have to wait? Wouldn’t you rather
buy it now and renovate it to your own taste?”

“No, I’d rather keep renovating it
the way the owner wants me to and get paid for it. I’m doing the job because we
need the work. Not because I love renovating homes.”

“You’re doing the job because your
guys need the work, not because we need the money.” Mitzy sighed. “It’s
such a great house.” She loved the house for its quirky ‘80s style and she
loved the neighborhood—the 1987 Fantasy Homes Street.

“I’d rather have the clients pay my
men to tear the place apart.” Alonzo stabbed the pot roast with his fork.
“Listen Mitz, I get to run my business, and you get to run yours, okay? Don’t
try and undo the work I’ve got going.”

“But—”

“Let it rest.”

Alonzo was blind if he could go
there to work every day and not realize it was the perfect home for them. Mitzy
chewed on her bottom lip while she plotted her campaign. If she could sell a
seven-hundred-square-foot hut in the middle of North Portland to an aging
hipster, then she could sell her own husband the coolest house in Pleasant
Valley. “You could fit three of this little house into my condo we sold.”

“True.”

“Well?”

“Well? We didn’t need all that
space. I own this house. It made good sense to sell your place and live here.”

“I owned the condo.”

“There were still association fees.
It’s better to own your house outright. Be the king of your own castle.” Alonzo
pulled the fork out of his meat. He covered it in the plastic wrap that still
clung to the edge of the plate.

“Is the neighborhood association
the reason you don’t like the fantasy house?” Mitzy wanted to determine the
biggest weakness of the property so she could properly form her sales pitch.

“Yes. I also don’t like that it is
not for sale and that we already have a great house.”

“A great house?”

Alonzo shrugged.

Mitzy perched on his knee and
draped her arm over his shoulder. She stroked the back of his head with her
fingertips. “I love you, babe, but I’m a house girl. It’s my thing. It’s what
I’m into. Please don’t ask me to live in a boring house.”

“When we’re done with the Pleasant
Valley house, you can hire my guys to do this one. Deal?”

Mitzy shook her head. “No deal. How
about as soon as I sell the house on Concord we buy the Pleasant Valley house?”

“The million dollar property?”

“Only $700,000. But there was a
time…”

“Where you do plan to find big
money for a house like that?”

“If I can find big money for that
house, can we buy the Pleasant Valley house?”

Alonzo kissed the nape of Mitzy’s
neck. “No.”

“Two can play that game.” Mitzy
nibbled Alonzo’s ear and whispered, “Please?” She let her lips linger for a
brief moment.

“What would we do with this place?”

“Put a renter in it.”

“I don’t like the idea, babe.”
Alonzo placed his hands on Mitzy’s hips and pushed her up as he stood. “But I
guess we can consider it. Why don’t I think about it while you sell that other
house? Then we can talk again.” Alonzo took his plate of lukewarm meat back to
the microwave.

“Think and pray, then. This could
be one of those ‘love your wife as Christ loved the church’ kind of times.”

“Or it could be a good ‘wives
submit yourself to your husbands’ kind of time.”

“You would know that verse,
wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

Mitzy pulled her shawl-collar
cardigan around her and shivered. “This house has baseboard electric heat, Alonzo.
I don’t know how much longer I can live like this.”

“Then I guess you’d better get that
Concord house sold.”

2

The following morning was also
cold, and the house was still small. But rather than worry over it, Mitzy sat
cross-legged on the floor in front of Alonzo’s recliner, enjoying his warm legs
against her back as she worked. Her laptop was open, and she was plotting how
to sell an expensive older house fast. The house on Concord had listed two days
ago, but no one had called for a showing yet.

Almost one year after their
wedding, two years after the housing bubble burst, there really hadn’t been an
uptick in the market. While the house she was trying to sell would have fetched
a couple million dollars in about a week in 2006, now in 2011, finding a buyer
at less than half that would be a serious challenge.

The house needed tweaking—little
improvements here and there—but the owner had lived in it since it was built as
a custom home. Staging the house would be a hard sell. Mitzy clicked through
the pictures. Cluttered office. Tile in the kitchen instead of granite. Carpet
in the main living areas. Without the top-of-the-line finishes like hardwoods
and natural stone, the house would have to be staged to perfection.

Mitzy stopped at the picture of the
master bedroom. A full five-hundred-square-feet of living space, antique French
bedroom furniture, a tray ceiling, a chandelier, two walk-in closets: it was
every newlywed’s dream room. But it couldn’t make a marriage work.

Mitzy leaned back against Alonzo’s
knees. Their bed was shoved into the corner of the smallest room she had ever
seen, and she had to use the third bedroom as a closet.

Her client, Karina English, seemed
glad to have ended her twenty-year marriage, and now she wanted to unload the
house her cheating husband had built for her. If Mitzy had been offered the
choice between that life and her own, she would have kept her tiny dwelling and
faithful husband, but frankly, she didn’t see why she couldn’t have a great
house and a great husband.

She clicked to the outdoor shots.
Not a single yard in Portland looked good on December 1st.

Her cell phone vibrated in her
pocket. She dragged her mind away from the house and checked the number. It was
Karina.

“This is Mitzy. What can I do for you,
Karina?”

On the other end of the line,
Karina was crying.

Mitzy lowered the tone of her
voice. “Karina, I’m here. What is it?” She looked up at Alonzo.

He cocked his head, furrowed his
brows, and mouthed, “What happened?”

Karina sobbed and make word-like
sounds that Mitzy couldn’t understand.

Mitzy stood up and raised her
shoulders. “I don’t know.”

She closeted herself in the bedroom
they used as an office/closet. “Whenever you are ready, Karina, or do you want
me to come to you? Are you at your house?”

Karina’s crying slowed down. “Yes,
please come here. Arnold is dead.” She broke down again as soon as the words
were out.

“I’ll be right there, Karina. I can
be there in twenty minutes.” Mitzy kept the line live for a few moments longer
while she put on her snow boots. When Karina eventually managed a sobbing
“thank you,” they both ended the call. Mitzy stuffed her phone into the pocket
of her ski jacket.

“Alonzo, will you come up to
Concord with me? Arnold English is dead.”

Young artist Fleur D'Hemecourt is as breathtaking as the surreal beauties she paints and as decoriously aloof. Haunted by the childhood loss of her parents, she returns to Post WWII New Orleans and the foreboding mansion on St. Charles Avenue to claim her estate, with the intention of continuing her art studies in Europe. Her plans soon change when she and Louis Russo, a handsome young attorney meet. But a series of accidents and near misses convince her that someone is after her life. Dark secrets soon begin to surface--painting shadowy images of family, friends and the man she dares to love.

Friday, October 25, 2013

When Halloween comes every year our family has traditions we've kept ever since I can remember. My husband carves the pumpkin one week in advance, and I scoop out the seeds to boil, salt, and bake. A special treat if you like snacks like sunflower seeds, etc.

On Halloween night we watch movies which must include "The Mummy" with Boris Korloff, "Young Frankentein," and "Monster House."

We also light the first fire on Halloween night - except this year we've had a cooling trend so we lit the fire early.

Our Halloween supper changes from year to year, but I've known people who have special menus for the occasion. One neighbor made a hamburger stuffed pumpkin after the carving...every year...maybe this year we'll do mummy hot dogs. Not sure yet but they do look cute!

As I perused Pinterest ideas one of my grandsons looking over my shoulder became obsessed with the spider chocolate-chip cookies. I proceeded to buy a roll of dough for the project, and now perhaps we'll have added a new tradition to the mix.

The trick-or-treat candy is purchased by my husband because he wants control over any leftovers. I let him choose.

My husband and I take turns answering the door for trick-or-treaters. It's a wonderful time to say hello to neighbors and admire the children's costumes. Usually traffic dies down between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. That's when we turn off the porch light and fire, then head for sleep.

Many of you may include the above traditions, or do you have others? We would love to hear how you spend the evening. After speculating whether or not to celebrate this strange event based on All Hallows' Day, I've come to the conclusion that Halloween is a time for neighbors to celebrate a fun welcome for Fall.

Stay safe and watch out for goblins!

See you in my books!

~Nancy Jill Thames

Mystery
novelist Nancy Jill Thames has published Christian fiction since 2010.
The author of seven books in the Jillian Bradley series, she is an award-winning blogger and listed numerous times on the Author Watch Bestseller’s
List. In addition, she won first place in her church's 4th of July celebration for her chocolate cream pie.

When she isn’t plotting her next
book, she spends time with her six
grandchildren, tags along with her husband on business trips, and
plays classical piano for her personal enjoyment. She is an active
memberof the Leander Writers' Guild, American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW),
CenTex Chapter-ACFW, and supports the Central Texas SPCA with a portionof her book sales. She resides with her husband in Leander, Texas.